Cheap Thrills
by Vaetra
Summary: Waiting around for things to blow up sure does give you a lot of time to think. Joker-centric oneshot.


_Firstly to everyone (anyone?) who has been reading my stories, I'm really sorry I haven't written anything lately. There are a lot of reasons why, but they're all boring, so I'll let you imagine an epic chase involving pirates and purple aliens. This is just a (very) short random thing, sort of from the Joker's pov, while he's waiting for the Batman to arrive and the ships to blow up... what a sentence..._

The view from the wide windows of the shooting gallery certainly was commanding—another reason why he'd chosen this spot. He always had been a sucker for nice views. Maybe he'd take a vacation to the Himalayas—leave the breaking of Gotham's soul to his newly disfigured protégé while he took it easy blowing up Tibetan monasteries and admiring the spectacular mountain views. He snickered, and the thick-boned black dogs pacing the room behind him growled and raised their impressive hackles. High-strung mongrels. Still, they had their uses—namely, tearing the wings off a certain self-righteous little bat.

He shot a glance over his shoulder at the rusty clock pinned to the wall. A certain _late_ little bat. The Joker rolled his eyes. If he had a dollar for every minute he spent waiting for his arch-nemesis to show up… well, that would be a big pile of cash to burn. Still, he had to admit that anticipation often heightened the unparalleled delight he gleaned from watching his plans go off like perfectly set alarm bells—loud and intrusive. (Except that he didn't make plans. Of course not.)

He hummed to himself, shifting from foot to foot, and let his gaze sweep out across the darkened skyline. No pretty orange explosions yet, but then, he hadn't really expected there to be. People had an annoying habit of dragging "difficult" decisions out to the point of insanity. But soon… The Joker let a little skip sneak unbidden into the rhythm of his pacing. Just thinking of how the fire would bloom carmine and gold across the sky, crumpling back to black out from the center, sent a jolt of anticipation up his spine, sharp and sweet like pain. The Bat had better hurry, or else he might be tempted just to start the show without him.

Wherever he was now, the Joker was sure Gotham's caped crusader would not be missing tonight's fireworks. Even still, he decided it was an experience they would both enjoy more together; he wanted to see the look on the Batman's face when it all went up in flames—or at least, the bit of his face that was still visible under that ridiculous mask of his.

The clown tapped a gloved finger against his scarlet-soaked lips, wondering idly if he ought to take off the mask before or after he let his borrowed pooches toss their chew toy around for a while. Before he could come to a decision, though, a distant siren distracted him, and he frowned, peering down at the street below, where SWAT teams were streaming out of their cars and into the empty building. That would be Gordon again, trying to deal with situations he really had no control over. When would that man learn that it was much easer just to sit back and let chaos work its destructive magic?

Though, he supposed, blowing things up just wouldn't be the same without some earnest, bespectacled policeman trying to upset him at every turn. When you got down to it, the Joker needed his friend the Commissioner almost as much as he did the Bat. (And yes, he had briefly considered the idea that those to people might in fact be just one, but he'd realized just as quickly that the notion was ridiculous—Batman didn't sport a blossoming grey moustache. Though it would have been excellent if he did.)

Still, the Joker thought, returning from his brief mental digression on bats and facial hair, he had to admit that without the self-righteous schemers trying to thwart him in everything he did, life would be pretty dull. Maybe he wouldn't yank off Batman's pointy-eared cowl after all; he'd let him keep it until the next round.

Suddenly, there was a soft noise, and the dogs behind him snarled louder, their teeth glinting wetly in the dark. The joker turned, his eyes fixing instantly on that familiar black silhouette, caped and cowled.

His smile had razor edges. "Oh, you made it! I'm so thrilled."


End file.
